[mdlug] Help with Spotty Internet/Network Problems

[Elisa Gomez]

> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 12:54:49 -0400
> From: "Joseph C. Bender" <jcbender at bendorius.com>
> Subject: Re: [mdlug] Help with Spotty
> Internet/Network Problems
> To: MDLUG's Main discussion list <mdlug at mdlug.org>
> Message-ID: <47236D59.7040506 at bendorius.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1;
> format=flowed
> 
> Elisa Gomez wrote:
> [SNIP]
> > 
> > I can also
> > generate a technician readout and a whole bunch of
> > other advanced features, but I'm not sure what
> most of
> > it means or how to interpret it. This does show up
> in
> > the technician readout, under PPP Last Connection
> > Error:	Your local connection is still busy, please
> > wait a few seconds before attempting to connect.
> > 
> 	If the technician readout includes upstream and
> downstream power levels 
> and signal to noise ratio (SNR) information, it
> would at least show if 
> there's a signal problem of some kind.  If the
> signals are just on the 
> right side of "good", I have seen heavy data
> transfer cause the modem to 
> lose sync with the DSLAM.

I only found one line dealing with SNR, titled as
"Conf Target SNR Margin" but the value was blank. I'm
fairly sure it must have upstream and downstream power
level information on there -- the readout is 330 lines
long with 200 odd items that it checks, but I don't
know what abbreviations up/down power levels would be
listed as. If you'd like to take a look at it, email
me at shmi85 at yahoo.com offlist and I can email it to
you.


> 
> 
> > PC-side, I'm using the standard gnome network
> manager
> > programs. I haven't touched anything,
> > configuration-wise. The wired connection is set to
> > "Roaming Mode" rather than a specific set of
> > connection settings. I imagine setting those may
> help,
> > but I don't know what to ask for when I call tech
> > support, so I can spend minimal time running
> through
> > irritating cache clearing exercises.
> > 
> 	Just wondering, is the machine getting a AT&T IP or
> a private 
> (192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x 172.16.x.x) IP address?  IIRC
> the 4100 can do 
> NAT, which is why I ask.

The machine's getting private IPs.
IP: 192.168.1.64
Broadcast Address: 192.168.255.255
Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Default Route: 192.168.0.1
Primary DNS: 192.168.0.1
Secondary DNS: 0.0.0.0
Hardware Address: 00:11:25:47:B7:71

I don't know what NAT is, or if getting an AT&T IP or
a private one is more preferable in this situation

> 
> > Also, in the interests of full disclosure, this
> seems
> > to always happen to me when I'm downloading
> torrents.
> > This makes me exceptionally paranoid, because
> they're
> > torrents and it's AT&T. Sometimes I will go
> through a
> > period of spotty service and then if I shut down
> my
> > torrent client, my service won't go down anymore
> > 
> 	Throwing "Speedstream 4100" and "BitTorrent" into
> Google came up with 
> some interesting results.  People do seem to have
> the same issues with 
> that modem, it appears.
> 
> 	The issue might be the PPP encapsulation and and
> decapsulation on the 
> DSL uplink.  The 4100 might be getting overloaded
> with too many 
> concurrent connection attempts and streams. 
> BitTorrent's capable of 
> generating hundreds or thousands of connections and
> maintaining them all 
> at once, and the DSL modem might be crashing trying
> to encap and decap 
> all that traffic into PPP streams.  More so if the
> modem's providing 
> NAT, as it's got to maintain translation tables too,
> which is why I 
> asked the address question further up the email.

I limited my torrent connection to encrypted ones, as
was recommended in an earlier email, but it didn't
make too much of a difference. I shut down every
torrent except one and downloaded them singly, which
made it a little bit better -- it would go down every
45 minutes or so, instead of every 20 minutes and it
gradually went down less and less. My torrents
finished late last night, and my connection has been
up since then, which makes me think that you're right
-- the modem is probably dealing with way too many
concurrent connections.

Is there any way I could limit this? I searched
through the KTorrent preferences fairly extensively,
but I didn't see anything pertinent (or didn't
understand what I did see). I'm not adverse to *cough*
scripting something, if someone will walk me through
it, line by line :)


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